Sparks Street

Sparks Street (French:Rue Sparks) is a pedestrian mall in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It was a main street in Ottawa that was converted into an outdoor pedestrian street in 1967, making it the earliest such street or mall in Canada.[1]

Sparks runs from Elgin Street in the east to Bronson Avenue. The Sparks Street Mall, that contains a number of outdoor restaurants and also a number of works of art and fountains, only runs from Elgin to Bank Street. The pedestrian-only portion continues for another two blocks westward, with the final two blocks west of Lyon Street being a regular road and merges into Bronson Avenue going south.

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Located one block south of Wellington Street (the home of the Parliament of Canada), Sparks Street is one of Ottawa's more historic streets with a number of heritage buildings. The street is named after Nicholas Sparks, the farmer who, early in the mid-nineteenth century, cut a path through the woods on his holding that would eventually become the street.

Sparks Street in 1901

When Ottawa was selected as Canada's capital, the area became even more important as the street became home to a number of government offices and homes for parliamentarians. One of these was Thomas D'Arcy McGee who, in 1868, was assassinated outside his home at the corner of Sparks and Metcalfe. The street also became Ottawa's commercial hub in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and was home to a number of the city's banks and the lumber companies of the Ottawa Valley, as well as "the best shops, hotels, dining rooms, and theatres.".[2] It once contained the Murphy-Gamble (later Simpson's), Morgan's, C.Ross, and Bryson-Graham's department stores.

The peak of the street was in the early twentieth century when a number of Beaux-Arts buildings that still stand were erected. At the time, the eastern end of Sparks Street continued across the Rideau Canal on Sappers Bridge. Where the War Memorial and Confederation Square stands today, was the Russell House hotel, and Ottawa's old Post Office. The square was built in the 1930s.

As the city expanded, the downtown became less centralized and commerce spread to neighbouring streets. Government ministries, requiring larger offices, also went elsewhere. In 1959, the street's streetcar line was closed.

Starting in 1960 the street was closed to traffic in the summers in an attempt to improve commerce. This plan was modelled on Toledo, Ohio, which along with Kalamazoo were the first North American cities to close downtown streets in an attempt to recapture customers.[2] The success of these temporary summer closings convinced the city to close the street permanently to vehicles in 1967.[2] Although initially successful, the mall began to decline in the 1970s.[2] Urban planning professor David Gordon, of Queen's University, blames the growth of suburban shopping malls.[2] Another major problem was the growth of high rise government offices with internal concourses in the area. Gordan and Bray wrote that Sparks became "an isolated island of pedestrian-friendly space in a traffic-dominated district" in a 2003 report.[2] Additionally, the Government of Canada is a major landlord on the street, its buildings presenting a "blank face" to the street, and discouraging shops from investing in the area long-term.[2]

Today, the pedestrian mall is open year-round and extends from Elgin to Kent Streets. While the mall is quite busy during weekdays, it is only lightly used during weekends. The National Capital Commission remains committed to operating and improving the mall. The street's landscaping has been updated. The Commission was successful in bringing the CBC Ottawa Broadcast Centre to a location on the mall and is seeking to increase business and activity by increasing the number of residences nearby. However, the CBC development has been criticized as "just another low-cost, banal building" which was designed poorly and has not brought more life to the street.[2] Councillor Diane Holmes called it "the biggest disappointment," and "a whole block of deadness."[2]

Sparks Street is home to the Sparks Street International Chicken & Rib Cook-off every year in late June.

Each year, around the August civic holiday, Sparks street plays host to the Ottawa International Buskers Festival, where buskers from around the world come to showcase their art to tourists and locals in downtown Ottawa.[3]

Latin Sparks Festival made its debut in 2012 as a small group of 40 friends gathered weekly on Sparks Street to dance outdoors in the summertime. Sparks Street is home to Latin Sparks Festival since 2012, featuring music, dancing and food.[4]

The eastern section of the street sees a number of the oldest buildings, including Ottawa's post office from 1939; the Ottawa Electric Building, built in 1926 by the founders of the Ottawa Electric Railway, Ottawa's streetcar system, Ottawa's first high-rise:[1] the Bible House/old James Hope building at 61 Sparks, built in 1910; and branches of a number of Canada's banks from the same era.

A pair of notable newer buildings are also on this section of the mall, including the CBC Ottawa Broadcast Centre and the Thomas D'Arcy McGee Building, which is located at the corner of Metcalfe and Sparks.

One of the best known addresses in all of Canada for many years was "56 Sparks Street, Ottawa" as it was the tag line used in a large number of radio and television commercials and commentaries made by Lotta Hitschmanova, the founder of the humanitarian charity USC Canada which moved to an office at 56 Sparks Street soon after it was created in 1945.[5]